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Obama at centre stage as crucial round of climate talks begins

Homes damaged by a fire at Breezy Point are shown, in the New York City borough of Queens Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. The fire destroyed between 80 and 100 houses Monday night in the flooded neighborhood. More than 190 firefighters have contained the six-alarm blaze fire, but they are still putting out some pockets of fire. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

WASHINGTON – As the United Nations annual climate change conference begins in Doha Monday, all eyes will be on U.S. President Barack Obama to see if he is ready to lead the world towards an ambitious agreement on reducing greenhouse gases.

The United States has committed to keeping the global mean temperature rise to two degrees Celsius but has not backed up this commitment with a willingness to sign an international agreement that would bind the country to carbon reductions that meet this goal. Without America’s signature, it is doubtful industrialized nations, particularly China, will commit to binding measures. China and the U.S. are the world’s two biggest greenhouse-gas emitters.

Any strengthening of Obama’s commitments will have important effects on Canada because the Harper government has tied its climate change policy to that of the United States, citing the close links between the two economies.

Obama has sent mixed signals of support for enhanced action. “We want our children to live in an America … that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet,” he said during his acceptance speech following re-election.

At the same time, he pledged not to do anything that will adversely affect job creation and economic growth.

Four years ago, Obama claimed global arming was a top priority. Yet while American negotiators rejoined the UN negotiations, they watered down global ambitions by committing to a 17-per-cent carbon reduction on 2005 emissions by 2020. Experts say that will not stop the global mean temperature from exceeding the critical two-degree-Celsius limit that could result in runaway climate change.

Negotiators will be watching to see if U.S. special envoy Todd Stern makes more ambitious commitments towards meeting the two-degree goal. His recent statements, however, are a repeat of his favourite dictum that “politics is the art of the possible” and that while the argument for drastic action is powerful, no country will take measures that will adversely affect its economy even if it means exceeding the two-degree target.

Canada is also participating in the Doha negotiations with a delegation that is expected to be led by Environment Minister Peter Kent and chief negotiator Dan McDougall from Environment Canada. Kent has said the Harper government favours a binding agreement that would involve all major polluting countries including the U.S. and China.

Although the Harper government has given notice it plans to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, it is expected to participate in its ongoing negotiations about the post 2012 commitment period since Canada would remain part of the treaty until after the conference wraps up.

The Harper government supports the UN negotiating process but it has rejected Kyoto since it believes the binding targets it set to reduce emissions in developed countries were not realistic.

Many studies indicate that carbon reductions will have to be far more ambitious than what is currently on the table in Doha.

The annual Pricewaterhouse Coopers Low Carbon Economy Index recently stated that even if we doubled the rate of decarbonising the global economy, the mean temperature would still rise six degrees by the end of this century.

“To give ourselves a more than 50-per-cent chance of avoiding 2 degrees will require a six-fold improvement in our rate of decarbonisation,” Leo Johnson of PwC wrote in the report.

He added: “One thing is clear: businesses, governments and communities across the world need to plan for a warming world – not just 2 degrees C., but 4 degrees or even 6 degrees.” Scientists say such a large increase would be catastrophic for humanity.

Polls indicate that Obama may not be entirely in sync with American public opinion. Even before Hurricane Sandy put climate change back on the agenda with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s statements in support of immediate action, polls indicated climate change was a high priority for Americans. A Yale University poll suggests 88 per cent Americans give high priority to carbon reductions “even if it has economic costs.” About one in four Americans wants drastic action even if it has large economic costs.

Christiana Figueres, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said at a news conference this week she expects the U.S. to remain committed to the UN process.

She added, however, that its 17-per-cent reduction pledge “is clearly insufficient.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement “the severe and growing impacts of climate change are there before our eyes but too many people in power are wilfully blind to the threat.”

He challenged leaders to make good on their promise to reach a legally binding agreement by 2015. “Time is running out on our ability to limit the rise in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius,” he said.

Participants in the two-week conference in the oil-rich country of Qatar hope that decisions will be made to cement an agreement establishing the rules for a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol.

The conference is also expected to complete work on the Long Term Commitment Agreement, in which all countries have agreed to pledge greenhouse-gas reductions.

Finally, the Doha meeting hopes to make progress on national pledges for a post-2020 agreement called the Platform for Enhanced Action.